Former prime-minister Robert Fico stages a comeback with promises of social welfare and higher taxes on the rich

Rumy­a­na Kotch­an­o­va

17 March, 2012

Fire­brand Slo­vak left­ist Rob­ert Fico was set to return as pre­mier with a sol­id major­i­ty aft­er 20 months in oppo­si­tion as his Smer-SD on 10 March swept away rivals dog­ged by graft alle­ga­tions. Vot­ers angry over an unprec­e­dent­ed cor­rup­tion affair and wor­ried by an eco­nom­ic down­turn hand­ed vic­to­ry to Fico who wooed them with prom­is­es of social wel­fare and high­er tax­es on the rich.

A gov­ern­ment led by the 47-year-old euro­phile, who was prime min­is­ter between 2006 and 2010, will please Slo­va­kia's part­ners. They were upset by a refus­al by the out­go­ing cen­tre-right coa­li­tion to con­trib­ute to the first bail­out of Greece and the delay­ing of plans to beef up a res­cue fund for troub­led coun­tries. Fico prom­ised to sup­port EU efforts to pro­tect the euro cur­ren­cy, adopt­ed by Slo­va­kia in 2009. "The Euro­pe­an Union can lean on Smer because we real­ize that Slo­va­kia, as a small coun­try liv­ing in Europe and want­ing to live in Europe ... desires to main­tain the euro zone and the euro as a strong Euro­pe­an cur­ren­cy," he said at the par­ty head­quar­ters, to the cheers and applause of sup­port­ers.

He is often dis­missed as a popu­list and even dem­a­gogue by his crit­ics. Ahead of the elec­tions, he pledged a host of chan­ges to ben­e­fit the most under­priv­i­leged among the 5.4-mil­lion pop­u­la­tion of the coun­try, which is the sec­ond poor­est in the Euro­zone aft­er Esto­nia. Fico has vowed to dump the rul­ing right-wing SDKU-DS par­ty lead­er Miku­las Dzu­rin­da's flag­ship pol­i­cy - a 19% flat income tax - and rais­ing income tax for those earn­ing over €33,000 per year. "If you post record prof­its, you must also pay record tax," he assert­ed in his elec­tion cam­paign.

His plans involve almost dou­bling a tax on bank depos­its to 0.7%, rais­ing cor­po­rate tax to 22% from 19%. "We will aim for tough reg­u­la­tions on util­i­ty pri­ces. We have the ener­gy and the strength to do it," the pol­i­ti­cian told his sup­port­ers. "We don't want to go only the way of cuts and sav­ings ... We will not touch Slo­vaks with low­er incomes. We can real­ize a pro­gram of a social state, a pro­gram of improv­ing the pub­lic finan­ces that won't be at the cost of peo­ple with low and mid­dle incomes."

Slo­va­kia's econ­o­my has con­tract­ed sharp­ly in recent years, from a record high of 10.5% in 2007 to 3.3% last year, due main­ly to fall­ing demand in EU mar­kets for Slo­vak pro­ducts. The coun­try is bat­tling unem­ploy­ment above 13%. Although growth this year is fore­cast at 1.1%, its export-driv­en econ­o­my makes it vul­ner­a­ble to the region's wid­er slump. The former law­yer says he plans to con­tin­ue the out­go­ing cab­i­net's work to pro­tect the Slo­va­kia's sov­er­eign cred­it rat­ing. The coun­try, which has main­tained more invest­or con­fi­dence than oth­er periph­er­al Euro­zone states, has budg­et def­i­cit tar­gets of 4.6% of GDP this year and below 3% in 2013.

A man of hum­ble ori­gin - Fico was born on 15 Sep­tem­ber 1964 in Topol­cany, a small pro­vin­cial town some hun­dred kil­o­me­tres north­east of Bra­ti­sla­va - the future prime-min­is­ter joined the Com­mu­nist par­ty two years ahead of the Vel­vet Rev­o­lu­tion of 1989. In his own words, often quot­ed by his polit­i­cal rivals, he "did not notice the change of regime in 1989." Hav­ing grad­u­at­ed from the Law Fac­ul­ty of the Com­e­ni­us Uni­ver­si­ty of Bra­ti­sla­va, he push­ed into pol­i­tics aft­er the peace­ful dis­so­lu­tion of Czech­o­slo­vak­ia in 1993. He built a rep­u­ta­tion for him­self as Slo­va­kia's rep­re­sent­a­tive at the Euro­pe­an Court of Human Rights in Stras­bourg. Left out of account when min­is­te­ri­al posts were doled out, he estab­lished a par­ty of his own, Direc­tion - Social Democ­ra­cy (Smer), sur­round­ing him­self with entre­pre­neurs and busi­ness peo­ple ready to fund his move­ment. It was this cir­cle that prompt­ed some to ques­tion how sin­cere his attach­ment to the left wing is.

A foot­ball fan, high-end cars and watch­es, Fico pre­fers keep­ing his per­son­al life out of the spot­light and can rare­ly be seen pub­lic­ly with wife Svet­lana, who is a pro­fes­sor at the Law Fac­ul­ty of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bra­ti­sla­va. The cou­ple have a son, Mikhal.